Adagio e Dolce
by hawaii5063
Summary: Wilson is dead and gone and House needs to face up to it. Or maybe he doesn't, because maybe he isn't. A Halloween inspired fanfiction. Not slash, though you can read it as a pairing, or as friendship fic.
1. Chapter 1

_Adagio e Dolce_

The third day after Wilson's death, House is sitting at his piano, his fingers sliding over the air space above the keys but refusing to play. His bare feet work the pedals in perfect time to the imaginary melody he is silently composing. His eyes are tightly closed against the small bit of light that the streetlamp sheds upon the otherwise darkened room. He is playing an internal sonata, _adagio e dolce,_ and awaiting the flash of lightening that the storm raging outside his window will eventually bestow upon the insides of his eyelids.

When the lightening finally emerges in all of its destructive glory – several times a minute at the storm's current peak - House allows his fingers to touch ivory and the piano gives forth sound to its new composition. It's a song that House's traitorous brain has dubbed "Wilson." Not "Wilson's Song" or even "Wilson's Anything." Just "Wilson."

House makes sure he does not hear the music he is creating. The thunder's roll will explode just seconds after he allows his fingers to finally grace the keys, and the storm's crescendo will drown out any sound this mere bit of wood and wire can produce.

This is exactly how House intends it to be. "Wilson" will not be heard; not by House, and certainly not by others. As illogical as he knows it is, House has decided that if there is to be no Wilson in the world to badger, lecture, and generally annoy him into what passed for happiness in his former existence, then there will be no Wilson of any kind.

As far as House is concerned, this is a rule not to be broken in any form.

His team worries that he is avoiding dealing with Wilson's death because he refused to attend the funeral, and will not be attending the upcoming hospital memorial service. Cuddy conversely cajoles and threatens him for refusing to see a grief counselor. Even his own traitorous mind points out connections to Wilson in nearly every aspect of his existence. But none of it makes any difference. He will not acknowledge his dead friend in any way. To speak of Wilson is to speak of him in the past tense, and that House cannot bear - if he cannot have him alive, he will not have him at all.

And so, when the thunder subsides, House's fingers rise back up and he returns to playing the air, and "Wilson" once again disappears from the world.

As the storm moves off into the distance, House finally rises and limps heavily towards the window. In a previous existence, he would never have allowed the cold, wet drops to fling themselves within the apartment, creating a potentially deadly mold that could feed on his beloved piano. But now the protection of his instrument seems almost as preposterous as the protection of himself. He wonders why he had ever bothered trying. Wood rots, people die, people rot too. It is inevitable, might as well accept it. Besides, to House it now seems kind of fitting for the piano to begin to rot away alongside Wilson.

On the evening of Wilson's death House had considered taking a sledge hammer to the piano. It had sat there peacefully in the corner, mocking him with the reminder that there were things he derived pleasure from that had not yet been destroyed in a tangle of metal, rubber, and asphalt. Ultimately he had decided against it, just as he had decided against taking his own life. Like Dorian Gray's portrait, the only fitting tribute to a world that inevitably sucked all joy out of its occupants, was to rot away in it, just like the piano eventually would, and just like Wilson was doing right now.

Slamming the window shut, he turns to face the darkened room. He runs a rain spattered hand over his uncombed hair and down past his dark strained eyes.

And then, like some badly written B-Grade movie, he catches the first flicker of a spectral apparition during a distant flash of lightning that briefly lights up the otherwise dark room.

It is just a momentary glimpse, but he doesn't need more than that to recognize the figure. It's Wilson.

The dark hair and dark eyes offset by pale skin, the knotted tie slightly askew, and the slightly confused – but still pleased – look is classic Wilson.

There is also the wet dress shirt which outlines his friend's sloping shoulders and the expensive wool pants caked with mud that House remembers clearly from the ambulance gurney. But it is the blood that he knows best. It runs down from Wilson's left crown, past a torn and empty eye socket, and continues southward until it stains the shirt pocket over Wilson's heart. And there it ends. Just like Wilson's heart had.

House wakes up the next morning on the floor beside his piano. The floor is still wet from the rain that had managed to sleet in at an angle through the open window during House's impromptu concert. There is blood on the floor from where House's head had hit the edge of the piano on its way down. Fumbling to his feet he notices that he had taken off both a piece of his scalp and a chunk of the piano top on his descent. He momentarily considers the irony that he and the piano almost did die violent deaths after all.

As for Wilson, House refuses to allow himself to think on his appearance at all. There was no Wilson; not now, and therefore not ever.

Five days and two late season thunderstorms later is the second time he sees Wilson.

House is watching television, his eyes transfixed by the glow of the HD screen. The sound is muted as has been his habit of late. He isn't the slightest bit interest in what he is watching – to be honest he doesn't even know what it is - he's simply looking for a visual distraction in the hope that he will grow weary enough to fall asleep for a few hours.

He is lying sideways on his sofa, his legs hung loosely over the leather arm, his head as tightly wedged between the back of the couch and the middle sofa cushion as possible. He likes the middle cushion the best because it is most comfortable. His subconscious mind comes screaming to the surface from time to time to remind him that this is where Wilson sat when he watched TV, where Wilson spilled bits of food, where Wilson peed as he slept. But that last bit would be kinda sick, and the first two kind of disturbing, and he will NOT think of Wilson. He tells his traitorous brain to shut up, and he tries to focus on the screen's flickering colors and reading the oversized lips on the sexy infomercial chick.

House scrubs his face in frustration. Sleep has always been an allusive thing in House's life, but lately it had become a nearly impossibility.

He isn't growing the least bit tired, and he is in the midst of debating the merits of a midnight motorcycle ride when Wilson suddenly appears in front of the TV. He has that same confused look on his face as House remembers from his last brief sighting. The specter looks around the apartment for a moment and then turns his head to look directly at his old friend.

In that moment, with the technicolor light of the television screen flickering throughout the room, House looks directly into Wilson's empty eye socket and finds himself filled with anger. He is angry at Wilson for dying, angry at himself for conjuring up this grotesque hallucination, angry at the world for everything that has happened.

In his growing fury he grabs one of the many empty scotch bottles that now litter the coffee table and hurls it at the apparition. Wilson flinches as it passes through him without slowing and hits the TV behind him. The force of the bottle knocks the flatscreen over and sends out a bolt of electricity that pauses midair and then vanishes. In this last bit of electric light show, Wilson gives House a surprised look, and disappears as well.

The real Wilson, reasons House, looking at the shattered remains of both bottle and TV, would have understood.

Two uneventful, if not tortuously slow weeks later, it is a Sunday morning. House decides that the self imposed mourning period is officially over and marks it with a much-needed shower. He has been working hard on ignoring one portion of his mind in favor of another, so he spends his shower time listing all known kidney disorders. When that fails to prevent him from conjuring up memories of Wilson, he turns to naming the New York Mets 1986 World Series winning baseball team in order of position. He only makes it to second base before the crushing reminder comes that he will never mock the Mets again alongside Wilson. He doubles over and is ultimately left sobbing on the shower floor, the shampoo running into his eyes, burning them with a ferocity not quite matched by the burning in his gut. _Pathetic _he tells himself disgustedly before climbing to his feet.

An hour later, better smelling if not quite better feeling, he is sitting on a stool in the kitchen staring into a bowl of soggy Frosted Flakes when he senses that he is not alone. He lifts his head tentatively and sure enough his dead friend is standing a few feet away, holding the palms of his hand outwards in the trademark Wilson sign of appeasement. House flinches but does not move away.

The physician in him is instead drawn to Wilson's eye socket, which is now perfectly healed and back in possession of the slightly wandering eye that had always given Wilson his endearingly dorky look. The blood on his clothes, however, remains. Those deep maroon splotches that House has been seeing everywhere lately, but especially when he closes his eyes.

Wilson waits apprehensively, but when House doesn't throw anything at him or run away, he begins to speak. He mouths, actually, but no sound comes from his lips. He repeats the last few mouth movements twice – emphatically so - before he understands that he is emitting no sound. Or at least no sound that House can hear. Just as Wilson is attempting to very slowly repeat himself a third time, he fades away.

House dumps the cereal into the sink, and has scotch for breakfast instead.

The fourth time House sees Wilson he is on the balcony outside his office, sipping a cup of coffee laced with anti-depressants in Wilson's honor. The leaves have started to turn and his mind sees grotesque connections between winter, death, leaves, and of course, Wilson. He has pretty much given up trying not to think of him. He has decided that it must be his attempt at repression that has been creating these hallucinations of his best friend. Former best friend, he reminds himself - not that he has a replacement now.

So instead he is letting his mind go where it will, but it is not going anywhere pleasant. Instead it is playing with every good memory he possesses and turning it bad. Wilson at a monster truck rally – a car jumping the rail and crushing him. Wilson laughing with him in the cafeteria – while worms weave their way through his hollow eye socket. Wilson sleeping on the couch – his blood seeping through the blankets.

Sighing, he turns to head back inside and spots Wilson in his peripheral vision. He is standing by the brick wall, on the side by his former office. In one hand he is grasping a set of papers flapping against the October breeze. His other hand is busy with the Wilson appeasement gesture.

House quickly glances around, as if there can be some rational explanation in the nearby trees or the late afternoon sky. But he finds none there, so he turns his attention back to Wilson. The younger man gives him a tiny smile and then turns his attention to grappling with his papers. He finally arranges them against his chest, one after the other, so that House can read them:

"Don't be afraid."

"I want to come back."

Some further paper shuffling and a tilt of Wilson's head.

"Do you want me to stay away?"

House is still for a moment, frozen by the sheer number of rational questions and cynical retorts that are currently fighting for notice within his brain. But finally Wilson's minutely slumping shoulders vaults House's automatic response mechanism over all his other higher brain functions. He shakes his head firmly, so as not to be misunderstood.

A flicker of a smile graces Wilson's face as he fades from Houses' view. The papers he had held moments before float down to the ground behind the wall and are blown up against the bricks. House quickly makes his way over the adjoining wall, but when he bends down to grab at the papers, all he finds are some fallen leaves. He picks a few leaves off the concrete floor and rubs his fingers over their fine veins, letting his mind replay the encounter.

He doesn't believe what he has seen, but still he cannot suppress his first smile in weeks as he recalls that this time there hadn't been any blood on Wilson's crisp white shirt.

For the next two days House finds himself looking for Wilson. He plays the piano despite his reluctance to bring music into the world; he buys a new TV and leaves it silently on at all hours; he spends an inordinate amount of time on the balcony.

This morning House sips his coffee outside on the balcony in the morning's misty rain. He knows his team is staring pitifully at the back of his head from the dry warmth of the conference room. He doesn't care though - he's long past caring about their opinion of him, if he really ever had at all.

Instead his thoughts are on Wilson. He knows logically that this is all a hallucination. A creation of his grief stricken brain that has been pickled in scotch and pockmarked from years of past vicodin abuse, but he is not sure whether or not he cares. He has lost everything else, why not his mind as well?

His perseverance is finally rewarded when Wilson returns to him, somewhat surprisingly in the third floor men's room. House hears him before he sees him which in is a positive development. His hallucination has become auditory.

The voice calling his name is soft but instantly recognizable, and when he turns from the urinal he finds Wilson standing a few feet away, his fists resting on his hips in his superman pose. He is dressed in the same clean white shirt he had been wearing on the balcony, but his shoes are inexplicably missing. Wilson follows House's line of sight down to his own stocking feet. An annoyed grunt slips from Wilson's mouth and House has to suppress a smile. He reminds himself that he must be careful not to become too amused by these hallucinations. Not to forget that they are a creation of his own mind, not of some netherworld. He reminds himself that last time he indulged a hallucination too much, Chase almost wound up dead; so he simply nods a greeting in Wilson's direction and heads out the door hoping Wilson will follow.

He hears an indignant, "You forgot to wash your hands," as the door closes behind him.

Down the hallway at the soda machine House recognizes the sound of padded feet on tiled floor behind him. He buys himself a coke and has to resist the temptation to buy two, or look over his shoulder and ask for change for a bag of chips.

"House." The voice is gentle and achingly familiar. House steels himself against it as he turns and looks Wilson in the eye. A lab coat has materialized, but still no shoes.

"What, no cue cards today? Run out of leaves?"

"Is that some sort of pun?"

House shakes his head. He runs his fingers up and down the side of the ice cold soda can to remind himself what is real and what is not. He decides to see how much control he has over the situation. If his mind is completely beyond his control, then fine. But at least he will know it.

He looks his friend squarely in the eye and says, "Go away, Wilson."

"But you said I could come back."

"I changed my mind."

Wilson's hands are back on his hips and he is shaking his head in exasperation. The hair is flopping over his yes. "You don't believe I'm real, do you?"

"What's two plus two?"

"Wha..?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were asking questions we already know the answer to."

"House, please, can we just talk? I'll be gone in a moment. I haven't figured out how to stay very long." The pleading in the apparition's tone easily makes it past House's hastily erected wall.

"Come back as a dream. We'll talk then."

"Why?"

"Because if you're a dream then I won't have to go back to Mayfield."

Wilson nods slowly. He stands there silently for a few moments longer, blocking House's escape path. He rubs his neck and looks for all the world like he is deep in thought.

House looks down the hall to see if anyone has noticed his conversation with nothingness, but when he turns his head back, Wilson is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Adagio e Dolce (part 2)

The next week is filled with dreams of Wilson. They always begin the same - House lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, then a rustling noise that turns out to be Wilson.

They don't say much, usually just small talk. House tells him about his day, how much each one sucks since Wilson's death; and in turn Wilson listens and nods at all the right places. House thinks it's sort of like the cafeteria, only in bed.

Occasionally Wilson makes a sarcastic comment or asks a question. When the latter happens House sometimes answers him and sometimes doesn't, depending on whether or not he is feeling peevish. Humoring a dream isn't that much saner than humoring a hallucination he figures, though probably safer.

Usually as some point during the night Wilson will just fade away as House stares at him, or maybe House just drifts off to another dream. But it is nice while it is happening, comforting. Even if it is only a dream.

As the days go by Wilson's appearances go on for longer and longer, until one night he is still there in the morning when House's alarm goes off.

House stares for a bit at the sleeping form lying on his bed and wonders if he is still dreaming. He figures he must be if Wilson is still there, but feels the need to give his bedmate a shove all the same. Wilson sits up quickly, startled.

"What?" he asks, with a confused 'just woke up' look on his face.

Wilson's hair is sticking up on one side, and flat against his healed skull on the other. He is wearing a t-shirt and cotton sleep pants and looks for all the world like he did all those mornings when he was alive. "_Was_ alive," House mutters under his breath to remind himself.

Wilson shakes his head at House and starts to speak rapidly. It's as if he has been waiting for the right moment to have this discussion and has all his arguments are ready to go. _Typical Wilson_, House thinks, as he sits on the end of the bed and let's Wilson have his say.

Wilson starts by admitting that he doesn't know why he is able to return, but he insists he is real. He lists several things that he is certain House doesn't know about him that House can get verified and that will prove his existence. He then reminds his friend that House himself saw something at least twice during his own near death experiences – Wilson is sure of this even though House has denied it each time; and he ends his monologue with a flourish - a bit of Descartes. "I think, therefore I am," he finishes, with a look of satisfaction on his face.

House laughs. "No, all that bit of semantics proves is that _one_ of us is real. And since you're the one who went a losing round with an eighteen wheeler, that would be me."

House then reminds Wilson that there is no way for House to know for sure that Wilson didn't at one time tell House each of those things that Wilson listed.

As an example House cites Wilson naming his first grade teacher. House asks Wilson how he can be certain that Wilson never told him this information before? How does he know that he – House – didn't ask somebody, hear it from Wilson's mother, or find it out when snooping through Wilson's Elementary School yearbook?

House points out logically that any brain that hallucinates dead friends, could just as easily have decided to 'forget' random information, only to have the hallucination present it as evidence.

While Wilson sits back against his pillow to ponder this, House grabs some clothes and heads for the shower.

As he is adjusting a spray of extra hot water to run down the back of his neck, House suddenly recalls something. He had shoved Wilson to wake him up. He had touched him and Wilson had been there under his finger tips. His body had been solid.

House turns off the water, grabs a towel, and hobbles as fast as he can back into the bedroom. But when he gets there Wilson is gone.

He sighs, gets dressed, and goes to work.

Later that same day House is not surprised when Wilson joins him early in the evening, rather than appearing after the lights have gone out. He has, it seems, decided to give up on being a dream.

House doesn't mind. Wilson's presence in his bed has been positive, has helped him to sleep, and was providing a useful cover for his neurological symptoms. But now he has a puzzle instead. And for House, puzzles beat peace of mind.

House is fascinated by this new development of corporealness. He pokes and prods at Wilson until the he bats his hand away.

"Stop it, House. That hurts," he protests. But Wilson is smiling as he says it. Obviously pleased that House has a new found interest in Wilson's existence, no matter how much he denies its reality.

Despite House's ability to touch Wilson, the latter doctor's ability to interact with his physical world seems limited. While he can walk on the floor and sit on a stool, he seems unable to move things. House throws out to Wilson that this is clearly further proof that Wilson is not real, but an annoyed Wilson retorts that he is becoming more physical on a daily basis. That as the days go by he can interact more and more with his surrounding environment and that it just so happens he has chosen to concentrate on interacting with House rather than cutlery.

House scoffs. Wilson counters with a reminder that he has spent several weeks fixing those things that would matter most to House - cleaning up his wounds and appearing where House would prefer him to.

"Of course you idiot, because you're _my_ hallucination."

Wilson grows annoyed and begins to pace. Finally he whirls around on House and tries desperately to grab at the beer bottle sitting in front of his friend. His fingers pass right through and the bottle remains unmoved. Wilson clenches his fists and furrows his brow.

"Wow, impressive. They have a school that teaches that?" House asks facetiously around a mouth full of food. House's appetite has been coming back this week thanks to imaginary Wilson's presence. But House prefers not to ponder that too much.

Wilson is staring at House's food now with hungry eyes. He makes a few attempts to swipe at House's eggrolls, but his fingers pass through like a 3D projection.

House picks up one of the eggrolls and eats it lasciviously. He licks the edges, sucks on it a bit, and then bites down with a chomp, chewing with his mouth partially open. Wilson shakes his head in disgust but a small smile is forming at the corners of his mouth and a moment later it's gone viral. They are both grinning stupidly at each other.

That evening they watch the Discovery channel, sitting mere inches from one another. House tries to ignore the fact that he can now feel the heat wafting off of his nonexistent best friend.

Days go by. The rains finally stop to be replaced by true autumn weather; cool mornings and evenings interspersed with midday warmth. House eats his lunches on the balcony with Wilson.

Wilson can eat now too. He appears each day with a sandwich and a drink. Sometimes he even brings a thermos of soup. Since Wilson is imaginary, House never asks where he gets these things - though he is occasionally jealous of Wilson's lunches, especially on days when they look so much more appealing than the poorly made sandwiches House throws together. Imaginary Wilson seems to know this, and relishes each bite of his well portioned midday meal that House can no longer steal.

House knows that his team is watching him eat on the balcony, broiling with misplaced concern. Even though he keeps his back to them, he knows they are aware that he is talking to someone by the way his head occasionally nods or shakes, and by the hand gesturing that he can't suppress.

When Taub is foolish enough (or perhaps he picked the short straw) to venture a concerned comment to House, he bites his head off. Figuratively of course, though if he had sharp enough teeth and the ability to get away with it, it would have been literally. The rest of the team seems to have enough of a survival instinct to not bring it up again.

Cuddy, however, is a different story.

Exactly one week after the lunches with Wilson begin, Cuddy joins them on the balcony. She has her lunch in one hand and she drags a chair outside with the other. She smiles at House, and he can see that she is valiantly struggling to keep the pity off her face. He wants to bite her head off too, before she even begins with whatever it is she has come to say, but he swallows it alongside an extra large bite of his peanut butter sandwich.

He knows she has suffered as well with Wilson's death; her eyes were constantly red for a week following Wilson earthly departure. He knows, even though he doesn't like to admit it, that she had loved him too in her own way. So instead he allows his eyes to simply give warning to Cuddy to be careful what she says, and how she says it.

They eat silently side by side for a few minutes, until House throws a fatal glance over at Wilson and sees that his friend's eyes are twinkling. He knows he is in for trouble. He shoots Wilson a warning look, but Wilson clearly sees his opportunity for revenge for all those times House ignored his own desperate attempts to get House to stop his behavior with Cuddy approaching. Now the tables are turned and imaginary Wilson is going to cause trouble for him. Clearly lots of trouble.

Wilson puts down his sandwich and stands up from where he had been sitting moments earlier on the balcony wall. He walks slowly over to Cuddy while House tries desperately not to follow his movements with his eyes.

At first it is easy for House to see himself in Wilson's antics. The younger man stares down Cuddy's shirt and lays on the floor to look up her skirt, occasionally turning his head to make commentary to House – all things House himself would have done had he been invisible.

House valiantly ignores Wilson and tries instead to look directly at Cuddy who has begun to make small talk. Seeing that he is getting nowhere, Wilson climbs to his feet and goes behind Cuddy, letting his arms poke out from her sides as if Cuddy had four upper limbs. He begins by patting her mouth, which Cuddy clearly does not feel, and goes on to make ridiculous gestures in time to her chit chat. But it is only when Wilson begins to make suggestive hand motions that House loses it and begins laughing aloud.

At House's amused chuckle, Wilson pops his head around and smiles broadly, clearly relishing having achieved his goal.

Cuddy on the other hand is stunned into silence by House's random and inexplicable laughter. She glances backward into the conference room at the team, who quickly turn away and try to look busy, and then back at House. After a moment she gets her features back under control and stands up, leans over towards House, and in her most compassionate voice she tells him that he cannot return to work until he has cleared a drug test and receives a clean bill of mental health from Dr. Nolan.

The triumphant look that continues to grace Wilson's face makes House momentarily doubt that Wilson is a product of his imagination after all.

House and Wilson visit Nolan every other day for the next two weeks.

House likes Nolan, though he has decided that truthfulness is not a virtue he can risk at this time (one stay in Mayfield is enough for a lifetime), and so he gives his therapist half truths instead. He tells Nolan that he doesn't actually _see_ Wilson, but rather feels his presence. And that he talks with him simply because it makes him feel better. He explains that he got the idea from Wilson himself, when he used to talk nightly with his dead girlfriend.

"So, Amber was both of ours imaginary friend," comments Wilson thoughtfully from his corner chair. It's almost as if Wilson hadn't ever really thought about that before and has just achieved a breakthrough in therapy. House wants to point out that this is rather ridiculous coming from a hallucination himself, but he decides against acknowledging Wilson in the presence of the man who once again holds his career in his professional hands.

Nolan is suspicious of House's explanation, but House is good liar, and Wilson is even better. Whenever it looks like House may be tripping up with inconsistencies, Wilson steps in and provides a timely warning. Together they have woven a story that is hard to challenge.

Even so, Wilson is careful around Nolan. The games he played with Cuddy are gone House notes, and he sits in a chair out of House's sight line, silent for the most part.

After each session Wilson usually remains silent on the ride home in the car which is surprisingly uncomfortable for House. As ridiculous as it is, on these car rides House finds himself wondering what Wilson is thinking.

It is becoming harder and harder for House to remain aware that Wilson is imaginary; especially now that Wilson is getting more and more corporeal.

House has noticed that the normal world has begun to take on a secondary form in his friend's presence. It is almost as if two parallel existences are merging.

When Wilson enters the car after therapy, he opens what appears to be an opaque second car door, and straps himself in with a secondary seatbelt. If House refuses to unlock the car door, Wilson cannot open it. It seems a second, parallel world is materializing around Wilson's existence – one that is both separate from House's own, but influenced by it. Wilson can manipulate this world as if it is real, but if someone restricts it – say by locking a door, it locks for Wilson for well. Unfortunately for Wilson, this doesn't work in reverse.

One day, as an experiment, House drives off without Wilson. Four hours later Wilson arrives at the apartment, slightly disheveled, and very annoyed. House doesn't ask him where he has gone or how he has managed the 14 mile trek back to House's place, and Wilson doesn't offer. But much to House's annoyance Wilson sleeps on the couch that night, while House hardly sleeps at all in his bed.

The rest of the two weeks, however, is spent in more amusing pursuits. Most days they sleep late, eat breakfast in front of the TV, and spend their days at useless but entertaining endeavors. These included a day at Asbury Park and an afternoon at the Belmont Race Track. Today they take a ride into Eastern Pennsylvania to partake of the Pocono Mountains in full leaf changing glory. It is Wilson's idea and House only consents when Wilson agrees to take the bike.

"Not like I can die again," Wilson states matter-of-factly in acquiescence to House's demand.

House grins, and heads to the closet. There he pauses a moment and stares at the top shelf. There are two helmets there – House's own, and the spare helmet he keeps for the very occasional back bike rider.

"_Experiment time"_, he thinks.

Taking the second helmet he holds it out to his friend. Wilson knows immediately that this is a test. He closes his eyes very briefly and then reaches for the blue fiberglass offering. On his end, House releases his hold on the helmet to Wilson.

A moment later Wilson is holding one helmet in his hand, while another identical one drops to the floor.

"I _am_ real," Wilson practically growls in frustration.

House steps carefully around the fallen motorcycle helmet and heads to the door. "Let's go, Harvey," he calls over his shoulder. He briefly holds the door open for Wilson, before locking it behind them.

Two and a half weeks later, Cuddy lets House come back to work because she has no choice, but he knows that she – and his team – clearly doubt his sanity. House is okay with that; after all he doubts his own sanity as well.

Now that Wilson is around most of the time, House has given up arguing with him over his existence. It makes for a smoother day.

Wilson lives full time with House, having gone as far as asking House to make room in the apartment for him. House obliged, and soon the closet is filled with Wilson's clothes, the medicine cabinet with Wilson's hygiene products, and the kitchen cupboards with Wilson's preferred cooking implements.

That night, after House and Wilson arrive home from the hospital (House had a patient and Wilson wandered around the hospital testing the myth that dying people could see him – they couldn't) Wilson heads to a kitchen drawer to grab some take out menus.

"Thai?" he asks hopefully.

"Not a chance. I hate Thai and you know it." They have figured out that if House buys real food, Wilson can partake of it, in a sort of secondary form, leaving the original untouched.

Wilson shakes his head amusedly at House and holds up a warning finger. "One day I am going to figure out how to get other people to hear me, and it's going to be Thai take out for a month."

House snorts. "Even in death you're pathetic. Only you would waste a cool potential skill like '_spooky voices from beyond the grave'_ on an order of Pad Thai."

Wilson shrugs, but makes lip licking motions at the mention of his favorite dish. "Come on House, we could get a few of those Thai beers. And you don't even have to order Pad Thai; we could do those spicy Saigon noodles you like."

"You know Saigon is in _Vietnam_, right?" House asks.

"Oh, well... then order something else you like," says Wilson, obviously a bit embarrassed. "I'll even pay for it, as long as it's Thai food."

House narrows his eyes. "They don't take 'invisible money'."

"Did anyone ever call Visa to stop my credit card?" asks Wilson.

A smile grows on House's face. Why hadn't he thought of that possibility before? "What's your credit card number?"

Wilson reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. "I don't trust you. First call the Thai palace and then I'll read it off to you.

"Wilson, you're living in my apartment, mooching off me. You _owe_ me dinner."

"I agree…as long as it's Thai food." Wilson folds his arms in front of him and bops up and down on the balls of his feet, waiting. The credit card twitches between his fingers.

They are both hungry and tired and they are at a standoff – "_it's just like old times",_ House thinks (except of course that Wilson isn't actually here). Still, for whatever reason, Wilson's credit card number is apparently not going to come to mind without 'Hallucination Wilson's' assistance.

"We both like Indian," House compromises reluctantly.

"It's Thai, or you pay."

This response surprises House, he had been certain Wilson would have caved with an offer of his second favorite boxed and delivered Southeast Asian food. But he recovers himself quickly and shakes his head. He'll be damned if he will let himself be outwitted by his own hallucination.

"Pass me the phone", Wilson says after a moment's thought.

House laughs. "Sure, Jimmy, you go ahead and call it in." He holds out his phone.

House watches carefully as Wilson takes the cell from his outstretched fingers and a second phone materializes between them, while the original drops silently onto the couch.

Wilson dials a number from the take out menu. But when a chipper voice announcing "Golden Thai Palace, how can I help you?" comes through the phone, Wilson freezes, his eyes locking in surprise on House.

"Hello, hello?" The voice on the line repeats.

House gently takes the phone from a stunned Wilson's hand and suddenly the cell phone disappears. Only the one on the couch is left. House picks it up and pushes redial. The phone connects again to the Golden Thai Palace.

House asks for a large order of Pad Thai.


	3. Chapter 3

Adagio – Part 3

House is called to the hospital early the next morning because his patient is crashing and none of his team is able to stabilize her. He leaves Wilson alone in the bed, not bothering to wake him.

A few hours later House has a diagnosis and the woman's life is spared, snatched from the jaws of death in a way he could not do for Wilson.

He would have traded every one of his nameless patients' lives for Wilson if anyone had bothered to offer him that deal. But as no smooth talking devil had shown up that fateful day, he had simply been forced to watch as the emergency room physicians repeatedly tried to shock Wilson's heart back into life. He had not let them quit, even after they had long exceeded the maximum guidelines. And when the senior attending had called time of death, he had picked up the paddles himself and went at it. It had taken three fellow doctors, two security guards, and a syringe full of Haldol to end his attempts.

House scrubs at his face to shake the image out of his mind's eye. That particular Wilson was dead, though he had a replacement for him now. Yes, the replacement was a hallucination. Both visual and auditory proof that the last thing House thought he had valued – his mind – was now gone. But he didn't care, he had been wrong. It turns out that the last thing that House really values, is Wilson.

Now that the current crisis is officially over and the woman is recovering in a department that is not his, House realizes that he has not seen his Wilson since he left that morning. He had expected Wilson to somehow make his way to the hospital even though House was not there to drive him. Or more plainly put, he expected his brain to materialize Wilson once he wanted him.

His thoughts are interrupted by Cuddy and her clicking heels. She enters without knocking but smiles at him sweetly. House wonders briefly if the patient had been the wife of an important donor and that she is here to thank him.

But Cuddy doesn't talk about the patient. Instead she starts inquiring after House.

"You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" It comes out harsher than he had intended. He knows exactly why he wouldn't be, he just doesn't like to be reminded of it.

"It's been your first case since…Wilson." She lets his name sort of hang there between them. The smile on her face completely gone now at the mention of the name.

"Yeah, except he died and she didn't." He sees her wince at this blunt reminder but he needs to state it like it is. He could never understand the human desire to tip toe around a subject that both people are perfectly aware of. Besides, he adds silently to sooth his own conscience, she was the one who wanted him to face facts and accept Wilson's demise.

"House, Wilson was not your _case_. He was brought in with massive internal bleeding. His vitals were almost non-existent. And even if he had somehow miraculously survived the bleeding, the damage to his cranium would have assured significant brain damage. It is likely he never would have woken up. There was nothing to diagnose. There was nothing you – or anyone else – could have done."

House makes his eyes go wide and feigns a look of excited pleasure. "Wow. I had never thought of that before. Have you ever considered a career in motivational speaking?"

As House is saying this he is simultaneously reaching for his cane. That smothering feeling - the one that feels like a pile of bricks have been dumped onto his chest – is starting to appear and he is finding it hard to breath. He needs to get out of his office and away from Cuddy. Away from everyone else too, except for Wilson.

He needs to go and find Wilson.

As he closes the door he can hear Cuddy sigh. Someday, he promises himself as he always does, he will be nicer to her.

House makes a circuit of the hospital, checking what he sarcastically refers to as Wilson's 'haunts'. He starts with Wilson's old office where the furniture remains untouched. House silently praises Cuddy for that and moves on.

Then he makes his way to the oncology wing where he gets a lot of caring, sympathetic looks from people who used to despise him. Wilson's former assistant Sandy is the worst. She used to spend half her time deflecting his endless attempts to derail Wilson's work day. Now instead, every time she sees him she asks after his well being. She even invited him out for a coffee last week which House snappishly declined (despite Wilson's nearby encouragement to go).

But Sandy is nowhere to be seen today and no one impedes House as he sticks his head into each room, hoping to find Wilson pathetically watching over one of his former patients. He gets some odd looks from both patients and staff, but they leave him to it, and soon he is gone.

After a half a dozen or so unsuccessful potential sighting spots (roof, third floor men's bathroom, cafeteria, etc) House's last hope is the nursery. Wilson had said something about babies possibly being able to see ghosts. It's a long shot, but he gives it a try. There are only 4 babies in the NICU, and another 6 in the full term nursery, along with assorted nurses, but there is no Wilson.

House is frustrated now and sits down on a chair in a small room off the main nursery meant for nursing mothers. A moment later his phone rings.

A quick look reveals it is his apartment calling. Wilson.

"Why haven't you come over to the hospital yet?"

"House, you left without me this morning. Remember?"

"I left the bike for you."

"Look House, this is not a joke for me. How would you like to wake up and find the only person who can see and hear you has taken off without a word?"

"No so different than what you did to me a few weeks back." House states flatly. Over the phone line he can hear one of hears Wilson's trademark sighs, and he knows he scored a point with that one.

"Fine. I apologize for dying, all right? Now you apologize for leaving me this morning without so much as a note. I had people I wanted to visit today at the hospital. And you know that I can no longer just materialize places since I have become more permanent."

House doesn't answer him. For one thing he knew no such thing – Amber had popped in and out without any limitations. And as for the apology, he never apologized to the real Wilson, so he can see even less reason to start with a hallucinatory one. Instead he tells Wilson that he could have taken a bus.

After a long, uncomfortable moment of phone silence, Wilson asks after House's patient.

House spends the next ten minutes or so explaining how the diagnosis solidified and Wilson makes his usual comments that drive the conversation forward. Occasionally he asks a question.

After a particularly insightful comment, House suddenly realizes that he may have misread something. One thing masking another. A misdiagnosis after all, and by him. His patient is still dying, just not as quickly, and not currently in his department.

"Damn," House mutters. He gives Wilson the "Gotta go!" before quickly hanging up on him and paging his team.

Two hours later his patient's life is saved again. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say 'really saved' this time. Apparently even in death Wilson is capable of inspiring answers in him.

When House wanders into the living room the next morning he finds Wilson putting on his coat. House chuckles. "Are you afraid I'm going to leave without you again? Going outside to wait by the car?"

Wilson smiles. "Nope. You're on your own again today – though if you need me for any epiphanies then you'll just have to wait until tonight. I'm catching the bus to Trenton and then a train to Cherry Hill. I'll be back pretty late."

There is only one reason for Wilson to be going to Cherry Hill. His parents live there.

"Are you hoping to see them, or are you hoping they'll be able to see you?"

A flicker of pain moves across Wilson's features and then disappears.

"I just want to see them again."

It's a lie, but House sees no reason to call him on it. Wilson, imaginary or not, is a stubborn bugger and the more you push the less likely you are to get what you want – unless of course what you want is a bottle of whiskey thrown at a piece of glass. And sometimes House does want that. And sometimes Wilson needs that. But not today.

"Okay," House shrugs. "Have fun."

Just as he's leaving Wilson turns back to House. "I found my cell phone in your junk drawer, and it still works. I'll have it with me in case you need me."

Apparently House does. But instead of saying that he just nods.

It is nearly 11:00pm when Wilson returns. His arms limply hang by his sides and his eyes don't meet House's. After a quick nod towards House he heads into their bedroom. House slowly makes his way up off up off the couch and follows.

He finds Wilson sitting, still in his coat, on the edge of the bed. His shoulders are rounded and he is staring at his hands which are folded between his legs. He does not look like he had a good time.

"Were they home?' House asks, even though he already knows they were.

Wilson nods but doesn't look up.

"Want me to pour us both a drink?"

Wilson shakes his head without looking up. "You were right House. I went because I _wanted_ them to _see me_. But they didn't. Nothing – my own mother and not a shred of awareness. My father couldn't see me either." He twiddles his thumbs for a moment before continuing.

"And she looks terrible too. Thin, with her hair unwashed. She's put a large picture of me on the mantle, right in the center, between pictures of my grandparents on one side and my dead great uncles and aunts on the other. Danny used to call it "The Memorial Mantle" when we were kids."

"Well, you are dead," says House logically, if unhelpfully.

Wilson glances up and frowns. "Yes, I'm dead. But I am also _here_."

"No, you're not." House says before he can stop himself.

Wilson is instantly on his feet, shouting. "What the hell do I have to do House to convince you? I solved your damn case for you yesterday and you still don't believe that I am real?"

House bites back the desire to set Wilson straight about his case. He didn't solve it for him; he just gave House something to think about differently. And who is to say that House didn't do that for himself, using an imaginary Wilson as a prop?

But Wilson is on a roll and House wouldn't have had a chance to get a word in anyway.

"No matter what I do or what I say, I'll never convince you. I give you facts you don't know and you convince yourself you knew them already." Wilson begins gesturing wildly. "I make phone calls and you convince yourself that you were really doing that and just imagining it is me." He starts pacing and House follows the spectacle with his eyes. "I even gave you directions to a place by the shore you had never gone to before and you tell me that you must have been there once as a boy. What in God's name do you want me to do to convince you I'm fucking here? That I am fucking _real_?" His voice crashes over the last statement and breaks on the last word, like a whitecap wave that hit a jagged beach jetty.

They stare at each other silently for a few moments and then House gently shakes his head. Internally he quotes Shakespeare's Polonius, "To thine own self be true." To Wilson he says softly. "Nothing, because you're not."

"I _am_ real House. I came back to you because _you_ wanted me. You _needed_ me. Do you have any idea what it took to come back here? What I left behind?"

House remains silent. He did have an idea, if what he saw that time with the knife and the insulin and the even cardiac arrest was real, and not just a dying brain flooding with endorphins. But if Wilson went there – especially if Wilson went there – he would not be back here now.

After a brief pause to catch his breath, Wilson continues on more softly. "Don't you want me here? You said you did."

House looks away, he can't stand to see that frustrated, yet still hopeful look on Wilson's face. House rubs his brow between his thumb and forefinger. "I do want you here. I…I want your company. I want it to be the way it was before. You were all I ever really had that was good in my life besides my work. But just because I want it to be true, it doesn't mean it is."

Wilson stares, his face a mixture of anger, sadness and hurt. "Fine, I'll go then." He makes a move for the door.

"Wilson, wait! Just because I don't believe you're real doesn't mean you have to leave. You can still stay in the apartment, come to work with me. We could have fun together."

Wilson's face darkens and his voice lowers to a dangerous timbre. "No, House. I'm not going stay around and be your imaginary mental Rubik's Cube to take out when you are bored and want to be entertained; and to stick back in a drawer and forget about when something more interesting comes along."

House has seen Wilson angry before and he knows now this is not simple frustration, nor annoyance. This is real, deep, anger. The culmination of a month of non-existence. A month of being ignored, discounted, and dismissed. House would have lost it after the first week.

Wilson strides across the room, past House – his shoulder missing House's by millimeters – and through the darkened hallway. House hears the front door open – Wilson's secondary door anyway – and then he hears it slam. A moment later there is a bang and the sound of glass shattering.

House hobbles as quickly as he can down the hall and into the living room. He flicks on the light and finds his African art print on the floor, its glass frame broken and shards spread in an arc around it. There is no original picture remaining on the wall either. The shattered picture on the floor is the one and only.

House wonders how he could be responsible for this if Wilson is not real. He supposes that he must have somehow made it happen, but for the moment his brain's processing speed seems to be severely hampered.

He shuts the light off so he can see outside better and then makes his way to the window, scanning for a sight of Wilson in the streetlight's glow. He glances down towards the stoop and over in each direction. He even moves back to the bedroom to look into the alleyway.

But he sees no one at this late hour. Not a single human figure, even in the distance. Wilson is gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Adagio e Dolce- Part 4

House sits back in his Eames chair, running his fingers over his cell phone. He can call Wilson again, but he knows his friend won't answer. It had been six days now and he hadn't answered yet.

On the other hand, Wilson is listening to his messages. Or at least deleting them. House has left enough messages to fill up a half a dozen inboxes, yet every time he dials there is room for more.

Or, as House's brain unwelcomingly ponders, has he really been leaving messages at all? Perhaps he has been dialing into thin air, his brain imagining this too? It is the only explanation that makes any sense at all.

House drops the phone into his lap and leans back, closing his eyes. Maybe it is better he just lets Wilson go. Maybe the fight in the apartment and his refusal to acknowledge Wilson as real, is his mind's way of playing this all out. Of acknowledging his real friend's death and finally moving on.

But for what purpose? How is he better off without Wilson than with? Hallucination or not, he needs Wilson in his life to make it worth living. Wilson was more than just a friend; he was his connection to humanity, something to hold onto in a universe that had continuously flung House about with the wild abandon of a wind storm. He was, to use a phrase that House normally detested, his soulmate.

And how exactly was he better off with half a soul?

House opens his eyes, picks up the phone, and hits redial. Five interminable rings later a recording of Wilson's voice – the real Wilson from months ago – picks up.

"Hello. You have reached the private voice mail of Dr. James Wilson. I am not available to take your call at the moment, but if you leave your name and number, I will return your call as soon as possible. If this is a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911. Thank you."

Beep.

House leaves his 63rd message. "Stop being such a drama queen and get your ass back here. " He drops the phone back into his lap frustrated.

He is frustrated with Wilson to be sure, but also with himself. He wants Wilson back; he knows that for certain now. But he cannot make his mouth say the one thing he knows would bring Wilson running back into his proverbial arms – he cannot tell Wilson that he believes now that Wilson is real.

House cannot say it because he does not believe it. Saying it would be lying. He is not usually averse to lying of course; in fact he has always fancied himself an expert at it. But if Wilson is a hallucination of his own making and he lies to Wilson, then he is lying to himself. And he doesn't want to do that.

And if he actually ever did believe it, that would make the hallucination a delusion. And House knows that a delusional person would not be asking these questions of himself.

He realizes he is doing a bit of a semantics dance, but lines needed to be drawn somewhere, and apparently some part of his brain has drawn this one in indelible ink. If Wilson returns to him, it has to be because his brain will accept it as a hallucination, not as a delusion.

What he doesn't understand is why he cannot yet convince his brain to return Wilson to him on these terms.

Perhaps he could get Chase to help him trigger the hallucination using hypnosis? The Aussie was usually pretty compliant, and if he understands that House is aware of what is going on, there shouldn't be any ethical concerns.

And as for privacy concerns, House could probably convince Chase to keep his mouth shut with a promise to write an introduction for that journal article he is trying to get published.

That is the one good thing about Chase - though everyone has their price, Chase's is usually affordable. Sometimes he even accepts installment plans.

Later that afternoon Chase has House sitting on the couch in Wilson's office. At Chases' instruction, House is holding several of Wilson's knickknacks in his hands while focusing on the penlight Chase is waving back and forth across his field of vision.

After a few moments he hears Chase saying something to him but he is no longer concentrating on his voice, but rather on the visual that is forming before him. He feels the room slip away, and suddenly he is in the clinic with Wilson standing across the exam table from him.

House recognizes the scenario and knows it is a memory, not a hallucination.

There are two small Nerf guns on the table between them, bright yellow revolvers with chambers that hold a dozen orange neon foam bullets. House is explaining that whoever gets the most 'hits' on the other in the next hour wins.

Wilson nods sagely and picks up one of the guns as if to look more closely at it. Ten seconds later House has been struck twelve times in the face and he hasn't even picked up his own weapon yet. Wilson is grinning at him like a Cheshire cat.

The scene suddenly shifts and they are in Cuddy's office. She is scolding them for their poor behavior at the charity fund raiser the night before. Mostly she is scolding House, but Wilson had gone along with him so he is getting a dose of it too.

Wilson is standing there quietly, trying to look contrite, but any time Cuddy turns her back on them he launches quickly into a silent imitation of the Dean of Medicine. He scrunches up his face and waggles his finger along with rolling his hips.

House holds his breath because he knows what is coming. Cuddy stills as she catches Wilson's antics in the window's reflection. A second later Wilson realizes it too and freezes, horrified, his finger in midair. House can barely contain his laughter as Cuddy shoos him out of the office so she can speak to Wilson "alone for a moment".

Wilson's wild eyed look of terror recedes again as they materialize this time in his office. Wilson is coming to collect House to come along on his weekly visit to Danny at his New York City psychiatric residence. House has promised to go with Wilson this week and then maybe to catch some dinner afterward in Chinatown.

House shakes his head though and tells Wilson that he is too busy to go with him today. Wilson is suspicious because he knows House doesn't have a case, but House gleefully points out that Glenda Carmichael of _Prescription Passion_ fame is in the hospital – apparently a botched boob job - and she might need a consult. Whether her doctor wants one or not.

Wilson laughs, wishes him luck with the 'consult', and heads out the office door. Watching him go in this memory, House feels even guiltier than he had the first time. But he doesn't stop Wilson, he can't, it's only a memory. Besides, if this memory continues Wilson will be back in the hospital in less than an hour anyway. This time riding in on an ambulance gurney.

"House!" the voice cuts through the memory and Chase is staring at him concerned.

House refocuses on Chase's face. "Why did you interrupt? It was going well."

"You were crying."

House wipes at his face and finds that it is indeed wet. "You tell anybody about this, and the introduction I write for your paper will include a paragraph on what Cameron told me you like to do with bananas."

He limps quickly out of the room leaving a speechless Chase behind.

It's now been eight days since House has seen Wilson and he is getting desperate. Whatever calm Wilson's presence had brought into his life with his ghostly appearances has gone now. House is back to not showering, not eating well, not sleeping through the night, and just generally not caring about anything. Except of course, Wilson.

It's like going through Wilson's death all over again.

His team must have been talking to Cuddy earlier in the week, because although he has not seen her in several days and she did not come by the hospital this morning before attending a Board of Governors meeting, she has had a file sent over to him from St. Sebastian's. The case is one that she is arranging to have transferred over to PPTH – a chronic eczema sufferer whose skin suddenly is coming off in sheets.

The case itself is not all that interesting. House figures there is probably an underlying disease or disorder that enough testing will eventually turn up - if they can keep the guy alive long enough; but the patient himself captures House's attention. He is a hockey player on the Philadelphia Flyers, House's favorite ice hockey team. Cuddy probably hoped it would sway House to accept the case, and it does. What she probably doesn't realize is that this player is Wilson's favorite.

House decides to take that as some sort of sign (yes, _a sign_. This, thinks House, is how badly addled his brain has become) and summons his team.

Three hours later the whiteboard is covered and House has taken to writing on the glass partition between his office and the conference room. The patient hasn't even arrived yet, so there have been no further tests run. Instead his team has gotten into a medical debate over the nature of disease versus disorder.

Normally he would shut them down and get their focus back onto the case at hand, but the level of argument is intriguing him (when did they get this _not_ stupid?) and without a patient to actually do anything to, he can see no point to derailing this particular discussion.

So instead he acts as a referee, keeping the game moving along, noting the score in dry erase scribbles, and penalizing any moronic comments with a sarcastic retort and a loss of points off the running tallies. 'Disorder' is in the lead, but 'disease' is running close behind. He thinks Chase is dragging Thirteen's arguments down. If she could get him over to Foreman and Taub's side she might win it all on her own. He hadn't quite realized how bright she was. He was probably blinded by her looks and the ever present prospect that she might randomly start acting out a lesbian fantasy of his.

He shakes his head to get his focus back on task so he doesn't miss any side's points, just as Wilson barrels through the door.

Heads turn, though by the quizzical yet un-panicked looks on their faces he knows that the team must have seen the door swing, but do not see the frantic man now in front of them.

Wilson is sweating and out of breath. He has clearly run a great distance. He is trying to calm himself enough to speak. House waits patiently, caught between a rising panic of his own and the overwhelming relief that Wilson has returned. He doesn't have any leftover cognitive space to consider the implications of his team noticing the door. When Thirteen begins to speak, he silences her with a hand and the rest of the team sit back in their seats and wait.

"It's Cuddy, House. She passed out at Prospect House, she's at the Board luncheon over there. They think she is having an allergic reaction, but they're wrong. It's a stroke. They've called the EMTs and she'll be here any minute now. She'll need Activase as soon as she arrives."

"How do you know it's a stroke?" House asks.

"What's a stroke?" Foreman and Chase ask simultaneously.

Both Wilson and House ignore them. Wilson steps forward. "Never mind that now, I'll explain that later. I just know. Please House, if they treat her only with steroids she could die. She needs a t-PA."

House looks back and forth at his team and at Wilson. "Have any of you noticed anything wrong with Cuddy lately?"

They shake their head in unison.

"House, I'm telling you it's a stroke! I've…I've been staying at her place for over a week now. She was fine until this morning. She had a headache. She took some ibuprofen, but her arm was giving off tiny tremors. I noticed it in the car ride over. At some point during the luncheon she switched to using her right hand to eat, she must have been experiencing weakness on her left side. I was thinking of trying to contact you, but before I could do anything she passed out."

"Your phone run out of charge?" House asks with undisguised bitterness.

"I left it at Cuddy's place this morning. Your calls were starting to annoy me. But can we please, please do this later? Focus, House. This is Cuddy we are talking about. She'll be arriving any second."

House's team is beginning to murmur amongst themselves. He looks around the room trying to buy himself some time to think. If he brings his entire team down to the ER screaming for Activase and no Cuddy shows up, he'll be in Mayfield by morning. On the other hand, if Wilson is right about this…

"Come on, House. Now!" Wilson pleads, grabbing at his arm and pulling.

He tries to shakes him off but Wilson has a tight grip on his wrist. He's pulling him to the door and House finds himself grabbing for his cane as he's dragged into the hallway.

"Field trip!" he calls over his shoulder. His team all get to their feet and follow.

All six of them ride the elevator down to Emergency with Wilson still gripping House's wrist. He tries several times unsuccessfully to peel Wilson's fingers off. Apparently the younger man has no intention of allowing House to have a sudden change of mind.

When they finally barrel into the ER, House finds that they are indeed preparing for Cuddy's arrival.

He gives Wilson a long last look. "Are you certain you saw tremors, the muscle weakness?" he asks in the lowest whisper he can manage.

Wilson nods. "I saw them. Combined with the headache that means likely stroke. And there was nothing on that plate Cuddy was allergic to."

House nods. He's trained Wilson well.

With a loud voice that stops the senior on-call physician's preparations, House informs him that it is not an allergic reaction as he was told after all, but rather a stroke that Dr. Cuddy has suffered.

House's own team begins to protest in confusion, but he cuts them off with a glare. Foreman is the only one without enough survival instinct to continue to question House's statement, but House ignores him and focuses instead on the attending physician.

Luckily it is a fairly young doctor and House is easily able to cow him into submission with a few bits of information that Wilson feeds him. Neither this doctor nor his team has any way of knowing that House has not seen Cuddy at home, and they soon accept what he says.

The appropriate medicine is ordered up and prepared, and in House's hands just as the ambulance bearing Cuddy arrives at the bay.

Three days later Cuddy is weak, but the t-PA has prevented any permanent damage from taking hold and she is recovering quickly.

Cuddy is being treated strictly with blood thinners and beta blockers, and had she been any patient off the street she would have been sent home by now. But she is not any patient, she is the Dean of Medicine and the recipient of House's growing legendary diagnostic skills. And so she recovers in the Diagnostics department's patient room, because that's where House wants her to be, and no doctor on staff - not even Cuddy - has the nerve to object.

Cuddy is clearly grateful to him, but not grateful enough not to have pinned him to the metaphorical wall with questions he is reluctant to answer.

All the hospital is talking about is how House knew Cuddy was on her way to PPTH in an ambulance when his team claims he had been sequestered with them for hours. How House knew Cuddy was having a stroke, not an allergic reaction, when the Dean of Medicine herself did not realize it, nor had seen him in several days. That the door of the conference room had banged open by itself, and how House had started talking to someone that clearly wasn't there.

The current hospital betting pool is laying odds on whether House is psychic or insane, and the big odds are on insane.

Cuddy asks him straight out which one it is, and then waits patiently for an answer.

"If I tell you, you risk having to lie for me when they try to take my license away."

She sits up in her bed a little straighter and frowns. "What are you planning to do that someone will want to take your license away?"

House smirks. "I haven't decided yet. But you know it'll happen again eventually."

"I've lied for you before," she tells him pointedly.

"Once a perjurer, always a perjurer?' he asks with a grin.

She shrugs. "Something like that."

At that moment he remembers why she is the only person he has ever been able to successfully work for. She cares about the hospital, and that means caring about not being sued. But ultimately she cares about saving lives more than anything else. And if that means lying through her teeth, she'll do it.

And so in that second he makes his decision. He tells her about Wilson. Not everything, but enough.

Cuddy listens quietly, making no comments until he finishes.

Then she surprises him by ignoring his confession involving ghostly visits and Wilson, and instead points to his left wrist. He looks down to see the remaining bluish bruise from where Wilson had clamped his hand and pulled him like a vise to the emergency room.

"What happened to your arm?" she asks.

He tells her the truth. She nods and leans her head back into her pillow. "You'll have to thank him for me when you see him again. Do you know where he is?"

House is taken by surprise by her response. He shrugs in answer to her question. "Probably at your place." Then after a pause he continues "Do you believe he's real?"

She closes her eyes as if she has fallen asleep. After a moment she begins to speak, quietly telling him how, when she was very young, she was certain she could see her grandmother long after she had died; though no one would believe her. Over the years she assumed that it must have been her imagination, except that one night when Rachel was not much more than a baby, she heard her talking to someone from her crib. When she asked Rachel who she was speaking to, she used her grandmothers' name.

And then she tells House that this past week some very odd things had happened; a door would move or a book would suddenly fall off a table, and no one would be nearby. She had dreams as well that someone was watching over her, and had wondered if perhaps it was her grandmother again.

But the oddest happenings of all were at the luncheon. When she fell to the floor she was certain someone had caught her and eased her down even though no one was that close to her chair. And then for a few moments before the world went black, she thought she had heard Wilson's voice saying something about House.

"I guess this means we're both becoming delusional," House mumbles when she finally falls silent.

Cuddy opens her eyes and looks at him sharply. "House, what do you call someone who won't change their mind, even when they're presented with new information?"

At his questioning look Cuddy answers herself. "An idiot. And I never took you for an idiot before."

They both sit silently for a while, Cuddy watching her staff through the glass walls of the hospital room, while House stares at the bruise on his arm, turning his wrist this way and that. He rubs the thumb of his right hand over the print marks on his left arm. They don't match. The thumb print is larger and was made by a left hand clamped onto a left wrist.

After a bit, a smile begins to form on House's face and he levers himself up off the chair. He leans over Cuddy and kisses the top of her head before heading out the door to find Wilson.

Houses' quest begins in the hallway, where he pauses to text, "You exist", before heading to his office to wait.


	5. Chapter 5

Adagio e Dolce (Part 5)

_10 ½ months later…_

House and Wilson make their way down the corridor of the Oncology floor, several of the rooms there currently being on loan to Diagnostics.

Wilson has a clipboard in his hand and his stethoscope peeking out from the large right pocket of his lab coat that he still insists on wearing. He claims it is for the large pockets to keep his equipment in, but House knows better. Wilson would have been buried in that lab coat if someone had let him. At least he has given up wearing a tie each day, House thinks. He still does the dress shirt and slacks, as well as the fancy shoes, but the collar is now open and his hair is usually towel dried, not blown.

They arrive at room 412, and Wilson looks at House pointedly. "You don't have to go in if you don't want. I can check his charts, but mostly I just want to speak to Mrs. Morrison."

House looks around the room but can see no one there, except for the old man tossing a bit in his hospital bed.

"Another 'undead'?" House asks, amused.

Wilson glares at House. "Stop calling us that, will you?"

"Fine. One of your own, then?"

Wilson nods. "She's been by his bedside this entire hospital stay."

"Why do you need to go talk with her now?" House asks. Then his eyes narrow and a smirk begins to form. "Is she pretty?"

"House, she's in her 70s!"

"Well, how am I supposed to know that she didn't die 40 years ago when she was in her attractive years, like you did?" He can see that Wilson is taking that as the compliment it was meant to be. Still, House figures it is not good to let Wilson's head grow too big, so he finishes up with, "Not that any age woman is really safe from your oversized libido."

Wilson shakes his head, but he's still smiling. "Just stay put here will you? I'll only be a few minutes."

So House stands outside the glass door as Wilson makes his way in. This is one of their current cases, though there is no mystery here. Morrison had been a patient of Wilson for years, returning to the hospital several days ago with pneumonia. At Wilson's badgering House had convinced the new head of oncology to throw the case his way, but both he and Wilson know there is nothing to be done. Morrison will not be walking out of the hospital this time.

Wilson stops for a moment to pick up a copy of Morrison's chart off the end of the bed, and after reviewing it, smiles sweetly at the man laying there; though the older man clearly doesn't see his former doctor.

Then Wilson pulls another copy of a chair – 'copy' is the word they now use to describe the opaque secondary forms of physical objects – near another chair, and sits down facing it. He reaches his arm out towards an unseen person and begins to speak.

House can't see anyone else in the other chair - the only ghost he can see is Wilson - but Wilson clearly can. And House is pretty certain that it is an old woman as Wilson had claimed, for the oncologist has his caring face on, not his flirting face; and he is doing that thing with his hand that he does when providing comfort -touching her sleeve lightly. Even in death he makes for a sensitive physician.

When Wilson first realized that there were others like him, House had been a bit concerned he might somehow lose Wilson again. It was not long after House had come to accept Wilson's existence, and they had just been working on creating a new kind of normal, when suddenly Wilson had discovered he was not as alone as he thought.

According to Wilson there are no outright clues that a person is a ghost, nor are there all that many of them around. Had Wilson not spotted a previous, and more importantly, _deceased_ patient of his at the hospital, Wilson may still not have realized there were others like him.

After that day Wilson had spent quite a bit of time with his new found friends, many of which House was certain were women. Wilson had even foolishly brought a few of these friends home to meet House, though House did everything he could to discourage it. But it was only after House started wearing his Ghostbusters t-shirt whenever there were 'guests' about, that Wilson finally gave up.

Luckily for House, after a month or so the novelty wore off, and Wilson went back to spending the majority of his time with House.

Still, the ability to interact with other ghosts had proven to be a useful skill at the hospital. Several times now Wilson has succeeded at obtaining important background information on a patient from a visiting ghost. Though more often than not his intervention with fellow spirits is the same as it had previously been with most family members, mainly that of comfort.

House glances at his watch and realizes he may need to intervene if he is to get Wilson out of there and back to the apartment. He has a surprise planned for his friend tonight and he doesn't intend for his plans to be co-opted by a mutual séance.

House enters the room quietly and goes to the foot of the bed where he looks over Morrison's chart himself. Wilson glances over and House makes a small tilt of his head towards the door. As Wilson says his goodbye, House goes up to Mr. Morrison who is shivering slightly and quite pale. He pulls up his blankets and asks him how he is doing this evening.

"I've had better days," the old man answers, and then punctuates that comment with a coughing fit. "I appreciate you stopping in to check on me though."

House nods. Palliative care is not something he is good at, and once a patient is diagnosed he normally has them transferred out of his care. With Morrison though that is not a possibility, Wilson wants him as their patient.

House glances at the empty chair where he knows Morrison's wife is sitting. "No need to worry, Jack," he tells the dying man quietly, "someone is always keeping an eye on you here."

With that House reaches up and overrides the morphine lock with the proper code. He increases it just a small amount, enough to make the older man more comfortable, but also possibly reducing the time he has left. But there is clearly someone waiting for Morrison on the other side and it is hard to see the downside of an earlier exit.

Morrison may not walk out of this hospital, but House can see no reason why he shouldn't float.

Having done a quick set of rounds with their Oncology floor patients, House and Wilson make their way back down towards Diagnostic.

The elevator ride, as usual, provides the perfect opportunity for Wilson and House to play one of their favorite games. Wilson asks House a question, and House tries to answer him in a way that doesn't make it look like he is talking to himself.

Currently there is a middle aged couple on the elevator with them and House smiles brightly, if a bit creepily, at both. Once the doors close Wilson nods towards the small pink bag that has been peeking out of House's wrinkled sports coat pocket for the last few hours.

"What's in the bag?" he asks.

House huffs. Too easy. He pulls out the bag and waves it back and forth in the air. "I bet you'd like to know what's in my bag?" he says way too loudly to the middle aged woman.

She glances warily at the man with her, but he simply shrugs. She turns back to House, "Are you visiting someone, here? A special present perhaps?"

"It's a cupcake."

"Oh, very nice. I am sure your friend will enjoy it."

"He'd better. It cost me $3.00."

"I am sure he will," she says, finally warming to the conversation. "Is he ill?"

"You could say that," answers House, nonchalantly. "He's dead."

The elevator door opens at that moment and House exits alongside Wilson. As soon as he is out, the couple in the elevator starts pushing the 'close door' button repeatedly.

"Would you please not say stuff like that? I don't feel like another entire day of clinic duty," says Wilson, hands on his hips.

"Oh come on, you can't tell me that we didn't have fun in the clinic," House retorts brightly, recalling the solid day of clinic duty that Cuddy had assigned them after a few ghostly 'incidents' that resulted in a morgue attendant quitting.

"No," answers Wilson. "I did not have fun."

But House can see a smile creeping up in the corners of Wilson's mouth. It was fun. A lot of fun. Certainly the four STD's, five colds, three stomach viruses and other assorted illnesses that they jointly saw that day were no picnic, but the mind games they were able to play on Nurse Jeffrey was worth every minutes of it.

That annoying clinic diva could never figure out how House knew every patient's information before he gave him the chart, or why pizza deliveries kept showing up, having been somehow been ordered from the clinic desk's hospital phone line.

The two men make their way into Wilson's old office – which is now their shared new one. The solid walls allow for more privacy for the men to talk and the room has enough space for Wilson's desk alongside House's own. Because Wilson is corporeal to House the two men cannot share a desk; but luckily Cuddy had not disposed of any of Wilson's things, and so the two desks now sit side by side.

Originally this set up got House some odd looks from his team, but they had long ago learned that discretion is the better part of valor. As for the rest of hospital staff, they tended to avoid House's office at all costs. There were, thought House, some real benefits to being considered insane.

House places the wrinkled bag on Wilson's desk and removes the cupcake; he takes a candle from his pocket which he lights before holding the whole thing up at Wilson's eye level. His friend eyes it dubiously.

"And to what do I owe this great honor?"

"Don't you know what today is?" asks House, genuinely surprised.

Wilson sighs. "House, I would really prefer we not celebrate my deathday."

"I thought Jews did that," House states bluntly.

"We don't celebrate, House. We say a prayer and light a candle."

"Then just think of this cupcake as an edible Yahrzeit candle."

Wilson seems surprised by House's knowledge of the correct Yiddish term but quickly recovers himself. "How about we celebrate the day I came back? Or better yet, the day you realized I was real?"

"You're real?" House feigns surprise and receives a glare in response. "Sorry, one $3.00 cupcake a year is all I'm good for. Now, blow it out before the candle ruins all the icing."

Wilson blows out the candle. Blowing out fire in any form is for some unexplainable reason a simple trick of all ghosts. It takes no effort at all to make fire go out, which House thinks explains a lot about Victorian era ghost stories.

Wilson can also interact with other real things when he wants to. If he becomes angry or upset it is almost effortless, and more often than not completely unintentional. But he can also do it at other times, only it takes a large amount of energy and can leave him tired for hours afterwards.

House places the cupcake down on the desk and Wilson picks up a copy of it. Then House picks up the original and makes a large circle around the edge of the icing with his tongue.

"Hey, who said I was sharing my cupcake? I might want to eat the original later." Wilson grouses at House.

"Sorry champ, you're gonna need your energy tonight. We're going out with Cuddy to celebrate."

Going out with Cuddy is always a lot of fun. She can't see or hear Wilson under most circumstances, so House acts as an intermediary. And that means an evening of fun for him misrelating key messages of Wilson's to the embarrassment of both his companions.

"I told you already, I don't want to celebrate the day I died," Wilson protests.

"Were not celebrating your ten ton tango with heavy metal, alright? We're celebrating this…" House digs a paper out from his pocket and Wilson takes a copy.

A broad smile forms on Wilson's face. "Cuddy got the Board to approve it?"

"Yep, we're official now. The Department of Diagnostics: The Division of Rare and Unusual Presentations of Cancers."

Many months back the two of them had begun concocting a plan to convince Cuddy to let them expand Diagnostics. They poured through the records of patients in the oncology department looking for anomalies, reviewed files of clinic patients where a hidden cancer might have been overlooked and spent hours reading journals that dealt with rare cancers or unusual presentations. House and Wilson even took a trip out to the Mayo Clinic to tour that hospital's 'Center for Complex and Rare Cancers' (including an airplane flight that resulted in House being entered onto the 'no-fly' list).

House also sat for his oncology boards – written and oral – with Wilson sitting beside him feeding him answers.

But their big break came when a major donor brought his son, who was experiencing seizures, into the hospital. Routine testing for epilepsy was yielding no results when Cuddy brought the case to Diagnostics. House was able to diagnose a carcinoma of the parathyroid gland thanks to a recent journal article Wilson had read.

The end result was a small boy's life was saved, while at the same time they had managed to secure an influential backer for their application to the Board to expand Diagnostics to include a division on rare cancers.

"How many fellows did they give us?" Wilson asks excitedly. House knows the expansion of diagnostics to include parts of oncology has been very important to Wilson. It has allowed him to be a physician again, and at something he is particularly good at.

What House didn't expect was how interesting a field it would be for him as well. It encompasses a lot more diagnostic medicine than House had ever realized before.

"We get two, and Foreman gets three for general diagnostics."

"That's not fair!" Wilson immediately protests.

"Wilson, Cuddy knows I have _you_."

Wilson blushes, apparently having forgotten that he counts as well. "All right. As long as we get Thirteen."

House nods in agreement as he polishes off the last bite of his cupcake. He wipes his hands on Wilson's lab coat for effect and then tells his friend to grab his coat so they can head home to get ready for their evening out.

"Hurry up, will you?" House demands to Wilson's back. Wilson is standing half naked, staring at the open closet, trying to decide what to wear.

"Afraid the bar will run out of beer?"

"Cognac, actually. We are going upscale tonight. We have reservation at 8:00 in Manhattan."

At this Wilson whirls around. House knows that Wilson hasn't been to New York since before his death. Indeed he was on his way there when an eighteen wheeler truck, its breaks giving way, plowed into his hapless Volvo on the New Jersey Turnpike. The best Swedish safety innovations in the world kept him alive long enough to make it to the hospital, but ultimately couldn't save him.

"Why all the way to New York?" he asks, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Because that's where your brother is." House answers matter-of-factly. "After dinner we have hotel reservations and we'll stay the night. We can get as drunk as we want. Cuddy too – just think of the fun."

When Wilson doesn't answer House plows on. "Tomorrow I'll go with you to see Danny. He'll remember me, and I'll ask him anything you want me to."

Wilson nods, though he seems unconvinced this is a good idea. "What if he can see me? He'll think he is hallucinating."

"He's schizophrenic, not psychic, Wilson. Though I wouldn't be too sure that history hasn't mixed up the two from time to time. But Danny doesn't see dead people; he hears voices of TV announcers urging him towards world domination."

Wilson concedes the point, but he still looks unsure.

"Look, Wilson, I know seeing family is not the easiest thing, but you do want to see him, right?"

Very slowly Wilson begins to pull some clothes from the closet. He gives a small nod. "He won't see me," he says flatly, but it is not a question, it is a statement.

House shakes his head. "No, he won't, not even if you want him to."

Wilson turns to House and he can see the sadness in his eyes. Even a year later it is still difficult for Wilson, especially when it comes to family or old friends. But at least they have each other. It has always been enough for House, and now it will have to be enough for Wilson.

"Okay, House, we'll go. And.…thank you."

"You can thank me by getting out of here before someone else drinks all our booze," is House's retort, punctuated by a swat with his cane handle to Wilson's boxer clad ass.

He limps his way back into the living room to wait for his friend. After a few bored minutes he sits down and starts playing the piano, closing his eyes as he hears the melody his fingers are making.

Despite all the changes in his life this past year - losing Wilson and getting him back again in this new, but different form - House can listen to the tune now without any pain or regret. Indeed it brings him quite a bit of pleasure.

The melody of 'Wilson' has few repetitions to its composition, and the left handed harmony changes pitch often. But the tempo remains the same always, even as his fingers make their way up and down the keyboard. Just like the song's namesake, House thinks, Wilson slowly moves forward against all odds. Never too quickly, but always forward.

And always bringing House along with him.

He has no idea how long he has been sitting there when he opens his eyes to find Wilson, dressed in his best brown suit with mauve tie, standing next to him.

"That's a really nice tune, House," he says. "You've played it a few times before. What's it called?"

After a moment's pause House answers him, "Adagio e Dolce. It means 'slow and sweet' in Italian." _Just like you_, House adds silently to himself.

Wilson smiles and nods; and then with only a small exertion of energy, hands House his cane.

The End


End file.
